


Broken Glass: Part Ten – Shards of the Past

by motsureru



Series: Broken Glass [10]
Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Awkwardness, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Law Enforcement, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-20
Updated: 2007-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:26:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motsureru/pseuds/motsureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for all of Season 1. This is a continuation after Season 1, Sylar/Mohinder-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Glass: Part Ten – Shards of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [hugh](http://www.livejournal.com/users/hugh) for amazing beta work! :3

**Teaser:** _Just as there was something dark and foreboding, a killer, beneath what seemed like a normal man, Mohinder was sure that there was something softer, too. Some lost innocence that had been twisted into the uncertainty that had caused this disaster known as ‘Sylar.’_

 

.10 Shards of the Past

 

            A battle was going on; Mohinder’s senses were dueling over him but doing so in a most alluring manner. The first had tempted him into pleasant sleep- a deep, warm comfort beneath his thick covers where he burrowed beneath. Heat kept him lulled in a state of half-awareness despite the hour of the morning. The second, however, had slinked so craftily into his room- the aroma of something delicious, teasing him, urging him to abandon his first restful sleep in days and days. Reaching a hand to rub his eyes, Mohinder felt his stomach ache with pangs of hunger from the sweet smell. Defeat.

            Sliding a leg out from under the blankets, Mohinder touched his toes to the floor and immediately withdrew them with a sharp suck of air through his teeth. Freezing. The urge to curl back up in his toasty bed was a strong one but he resisted as much as he could. Grabbing a shirt to pull over his bare chest, Mohinder braved the cold wooden floors to travel out towards the kitchen. 

            The man rubbed an arm as he passed through the living room and soon Mohinder’s eyes were met with the now familiar form wheeling his way around the stove, skillet steadied in one hand, spatula in the other.

            Sylar glanced up as Mohinder walked in. He stopped what he was doing suddenly, giving the man an odd look.

            “…” Mohinder stopped walking too, rubbing an eye. “Good… morning?” he greeted hesitantly. It somehow didn’t sound odd to say that. It seemed odd instead that Sylar didn’t say it first. “…What?”

            The odd look persisted, and then Sylar shook it off with a shrug of his shoulders, turning back to his cooking. “Nothing. That’s just a really bright orange.”

            Mohinder’s shirt was one of his loosely-fitting linens from India with three-quarters sleeves, dyed a bright orange that, apparently, stood out on a sleepy morning. It managed to be a glaring color perfectly well on its own, but was now even more so with his white boxers to accompany it. The man took a seat at the kitchen table, making a small noise of effort and glancing down at what he was wearing. “These are very normal colors in India.”

            Sylar shook his head and shrugged again. “And… your scarves are normal in some parts of New York too. And San Francisco.” He was resisting the urge to smile in amusement, but rather failing.

            “My scarves are just fine, thank you,” Mohinder muttered, rubbing his hands together. “Is it just me, or is it rather cold in here?” Mohinder leaned to the side, craning his neck to see what Sylar had on the stove. The stove seemed to be the only heat source.

            “There’s some problem with the heat in the entire building. It stopped running around five this morning,” Sylar said casually. “The landlord’s getting it checked out. That Croatian woman on the first floor is really annoying.” Sylar’s chair turned itself a little as he switched off the skillet and finished up.

            Mohinder could only meet the man with a rather flabbergasted expression. It was too early in the morning to think entirely straight; it took a minute for the notion of Sylar’s excessively skilled hearing to hit him for the billionth time. “…Were they talking about it downstairs?” 

            “A couple hours ago. She really gave him an earful.” Sylar nodded, grabbing a bottle of syrup as two plates piled three-thick-pancakes-high each floated their way casually onto the table. His chair wheeled itself into his usual spot and he traded the syrup in his hand for orange juice, pouring himself a glass. 

            The pancakes looked absolutely appetizing. Mohinder stared at them for a full five seconds before he gave a little smile and grabbed his fork. It was nice to have someone cook for him again. Even though it hadn’t been terribly long since Sylar had come here, Mohinder had gotten used to finding him in the kitchen making something delicious without having to be asked. Mohinder did the shopping (and paying, for that matter) and usually the dishes as well, so he had decided that Sylar could spend his time over the stove as he liked. It was a little peculiar, Mohinder thought, that someone like Sylar would enjoy doing something so… domestic. Mohinder would have never expected it; he found himself all the more curious about those things Sylar left unsaid about himself.

            Talking was something that Mohinder had gotten used to as well. After the first few days of agonizingly forced conversation, and the next few of slightly awkward (but excited) scientific discussions, Mohinder was feeling more confident about them holding conversations like normal people. It felt surreal, in fact, since the Sylar he sat with now was not all together unlike Zane Taylor. Zane had been more shy, more nervous, more eager to please. But Sylar, whoever he truly was, still had the friendly mannerisms, a certain politeness, and a rather open attitude to discuss anything that crossed his mind (no matter how strange he or his sense of humor was). Sylar was open to discuss anything but himself- something Mohinder had resolved to work on or start another argument trying.

            “These are really good,” Mohinder was saying as he cut up another pancake piece for dipping into the syrup. He smiled slightly over at the man. “But I’ve been saying that every time you cook, haven’t I?”

            “Can’t help the truth,” Sylar replied, putting a rather big piece of pancake in his mouth. Mohinder had also noticed that Sylar was rather proper with the way he ate sit-down meals, though breakfast was the one time his manners slipped away and he joined the rest of the human race with a spill here or there.

            “So have you always done a lot of cooking for yourself?” Mohinder asked, testing the waters of conversation as he ate.

            Sylar’s eyes flickered up and then back down at his plate. He took a drink of his orange juice, letting a silence fall briefly between him. Selecting his words, perhaps. “Sort of.”

            Mohinder tried to smile casually, as if the conversation was not becoming tense. “You seem quite used to cooking for two. It was a bit curious, since you said you lived alone.” Or rather, Mohinder assumed it the first night Sylar had arrived and seized his kitchen.

            “...I wasn’t always alone,” Sylar corrected quietly, the hint of a dangerous area in his voice apparent, but seeming slightly subdued by Mohinder’s affability.           

 “So… you did cooking for other people then?”

Sylar set down his fork with a clatter, giving Mohinder an annoyed look. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

            The other man’s gaze remained calm and steady on Sylar. Mohinder told himself that this was the road to progress; he couldn’t be nervous and unsure of what he did anymore. They had a sort of comfort between them and he had to use to it in order to broaden it and open the man up.

            “Why are you so hesitant to tell me anything about yourself?” Mohinder began, “Does it look as if I’m about to break down the door to the home you say you haven’t got and ruin the life you claim you don’t have? As much as I’d love to have a live-in chef who’s paid for in room and board, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little more amiable in a personal way. That’s what this whole ‘being a part of humanity’ thing is all about, don’t you think?” 

            A moment passed, and Sylar suddenly appeared embarrassed at the lecture. He cast his eyes to his plate.

            Check and mate.

            Mohinder cleared his throat a little, twirling a piece of pancake in his syrup. “Men aren’t really supposed to do cooking in my culture,” Mohinder began, breaking the ice again with a short little smile. “Well, they _can_ and many learn if they work away from home, but unless we helped on religious holidays my mother always took offense if we even went near the kitchen. That’s why I’m so dreadful at cooking that all I can really do is boil water for tea.”

            The orange juice in Sylar’s glass was emptied before he spoke. “…I started cooking in middle school. It’s like… I’ve always done it,” he said uneasily.

            The smile that crossed Mohinder’s face was wide, maybe even a little proud. Had he broken through, finally? “That’s rather early. Did your mother teach you?”

            “No,” Sylar said quickly. “She never taught me anything worthwhile.”

 

_“You’d never be able to do something like that! He’s just a boy! You shouldn’t be- be breaking up families and living out there on your own! Neither of you can even do your laundry! What are you thinking!” Virginia Gray’s penetrating voice sounded over the counter, wooden spoon in one hand and hip in the other._

_“But Mom! I can’t go back there, I can’t!” Gabriel insisted, the pleading in his voice and his wide brown eyes full of a desperation very few twelve year olds knew. According to him, his world was going to end if they couldn’t see it his way. The bruises and cuts on his face attested to such._

_“Tom, we talked about this didn’t we?” she insisted, looking between the two- from her small, dark-haired son to his tall, dark-haired father._

_Thomas Gray adjusted the thick glasses on his face and sighed heavily. “Sweetheart, if the school isn’t going to do something about this, then we should fix it ourselves.”_

_“What is moving him going to do?!” Virginia demanded, voice getting shrill through its already whiny pitch. “A new home, a new school, new bullies! He’s a little boy! My little boy needs a mother! You two can’t even cook a meal!”_

_“I can do it!” Gabriel interjected anxiously, squeezing his broken glasses between his fingers. “I’ll cook, I’ll clean! I’ll work in the shop, I’ll do anything!” he said hastily._

_“ **Our** son needs to know responsibility,” Thomas said firmly, overlooking Gabriel’s words but not ignoring them. “It’s just for a little while, Virginia. We’ll be in Brooklyn, not in another state. And if he says he’ll do anything-” the man turned and grabbed something off of a nearby chair._

_Suddenly Gabriel felt a great weight pushed into his chest; his father had shoved a thick, heavy book into his arms. He looked down at the bold black lettering, not needing his glasses to read it._

**_ The Joy of Cooking _ **

_“-then he’ll do anything.” Thomas smiled down at Gabriel, giving him a secret little wink._

_The young man’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “I-I can do it, Pop! I promise! I’ll learn how to do it all- just don’t send me back to that school!”_

_Virginia_ _’s frown of annoyance turned into a livid glare in her husband’s direction._  


_“Go on to your room, Gabriel. Your mother and I have more talking to do,” Thomas insisted, giving him a pat on the back and a push in that direction. Gabriel hugged the book to his chest and practically fled the room. It didn’t matter if he flunked a reading quiz tomorrow, so long as he could learn how to make pancakes to impress his father in the morning and prove he could do anything if he tried hard enough._

 

            “Sylar? Are you listening?”

            A small jump and the man found Mohinder staring at him, dark eyes concerned and brows slightly furrowed.

            “What?”

            “I asked… about your parents. If you see them much,” Mohinder repeated carefully, noting that distant look in Sylar’s eyes. He had been somewhere far away, just now. Mohinder wondered how hard a road it was to travel.

            “Not at all. They’re dead,” Sylar said tersely. He wheeled himself back from the table suddenly, taking his plate with him. He dumped the remaining pancakes in the trash.

            Mohinder felt his face grow hot, feeling immediately guilty for bringing it up. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t mean-”

            “They were good people and good people never get what they truly deserve,” Sylar interrupted.

            “They would be proud of you,” Mohinder blurted on impulse, feeling his heart speed up. Why had he said that? “-Not… not of the things you’ve done… but… of you… for being you… strong… and independent…”

            Sylar looked over his shoulder at Mohinder, his expression blank, but etched somewhere deep inside with an indescribable pain veiled in a threat. Daring Mohinder to say more. 

            “It’s… how all parents feel… I think,” Mohinder added. “They can’t help but love their children.” He stood and brought his plate over as well, emptying the rest of the contents into the trash and setting his plate down next to the sink with the dirty dishes. Sylar tried scooting back awkwardly, nearly running over Mohinder’s foot in the process.

            “Sorr-” 

            Mohinder set a hand on Sylar’s shoulder with a slight smile. “I’ve got the dishes. It’s the one thing I _can_ do. Why don’t you go shower or something,” he offered.

            “Yeah… alright,” Sylar replied a bit absently. He pulled back his chair- by hand this time- and exited the kitchen.

            As Mohinder took it upon himself to be the maid that cleaned up after the cook, he wondered if he might slowly collect knowledge of what came before Sylar. Of his father’s Patient Zero. Of the man whom apparently had died with his father and become what now ate off his father’s dishes and slept in his father’s apartment. Just as there was something dark and foreboding, a killer, beneath what seemed like a normal man, Mohinder was sure that there was something softer, too. Some lost innocence that had been twisted into the uncertainty that had caused this disaster known as ‘Sylar.’ 

            When he was finished, Mohinder returned to his desk and took a seat. From the bottom drawer Mohinder fetched his father’s small notebook, the one he and Eden had discovered weeks before hidden in the back of his father’s laptop. He flipped the pages slowly to the back, where he’d first read the name ‘SYLAR’ along with his address in Queens. Surely his father had the real name somewhere. Chandra simply would not have let his first patient, his first success, go unnamed or by a pseudonym. Mohinder turned the pages, reading them over once again as he had done many nights before. He read his father’s notes about Sylar’s physical tests, about Chandra’s initial doubts, about the data of various brain tests and the early failures of Sylar to produce significant proof of his ability. A few blank pages interrupted that data, and then suddenly several pages of scattered notes about the incredible display of telekinesis appeared in eager scrawl not unlike Mohinder’s own handwriting.

            When Mohinder had arrived in the states, searching for his father’s killer and validation of his father’s work, it was the second section of these notes he had been concerned with: people whose abilities had been proven to him, people who might have clues as to what his father had discovered before it killed him. But now… Mohinder turned the pages back. Back to the beginning.

_My initial tests have proven false. What I had originally presumed was a special ability may in fact be nothing but a natural intuition. His talent is years of experience, rather than an evolutionary development of genetics._

            The following pages proceeded to rant and rave about telekinetic powers and the shattering of a glass before Chandra’s eyes. Mohinder flipped through the earlier pages of the book. Before the entry for Sylar there were alphabetical lists of the New York cases Chandra wanted to seek out. A few notes were made here and there about peoples’ responses to his calls, about potential abilities, but no notes contained actual research.

_Telekinesis?_

Mohinder stopped flipping pages and turned several back. Beneath one name sat that word, an address, and nothing else. _Brian Davis._ Mohinder frowned to himself, mind turning over the possibilities. Originally both he and his father had rejected the idea that two people could maintain the exact same ability; humans are genetically unique, and the only chance for an ability to exactly duplicate itself, or even come close, would rest in the passing of genes through a family line, like any other trait. Sylar was, of course, a stealer of those abilities. Peter Petrelli as well, was an exception to the rule of that theory. It had been Mohinder’s impression that telekinesis, Sylar’s most frequently used and best mastered ability, had been his very first. Apparently his father had thought the same, and in his enthusiasm over proof thought of nothing else. 

_Natural intuition..._

            Mohinder closed the notebook, brushed away his screensaver, and pulled up the internet. Brian Davis. He needed to know if Brian Davis was still alive.  



End file.
